What We've Been Following (June 26, 2020)
A bi-weekly newsletter from The Takeoff
Hey everyone, welcome back to What We’ve Been Following, a curated bi-weekly newsletter with some of the podcasts, blog posts, tweets, startup news, and more that Lukas, Michael, and I found interesting over the past two weeks.
If you missed the last Edition of What We’ve Been Following, written by Michael, be sure to check it out here.
You can find us on Twitter @_TheTakeoff.
Companies & Projects 🚀
Neeva. Neeva is re-imagining search with an ad-free and privacy first subscription-based model. I’ve been beta testing Neeva for about three months now and am really enjoying the product and company vision. Check out the New York Times exclusive and Neeva’s first blog post to learn more.
Newsletter Stack. Newsletter stack provides curated newsletters to help you learn about a variety of topics (56, to be exact!). If you’re looking to nurture your curiosity, Newsletter Stack is a great place to go. Be sure to keep an eye out for a familiar logo when checking out the curated Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital newsletters 🙂
What I’m Reading 📚
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. As mentioned by Lukas in a past edition of WWBF, Thinking, Fast and Slow explores how two systems in our brains are constantly fighting over control of our behavior and actions, and teaches us the many ways in which this leads to errors in memory, judgment, and decisions. System 1 is fast, intuitive, and emotional; System 2 is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. As a psychology minor, I’m finding this book to be extremely interesting and highly recommend it.
Podcasts 🎙
20VC: Substack Founder Chris Best. Our favorite podcaster and our favorite platform — doesn’t get much better than this. In this podcast, Chris Best discusses the future of public journalism, why the economics of attention have been flipped, and why micropayments for content will not work.
DoorDash: Tony Xu. Very inspiring to hear from Tony how the humble beginnings of Palo Alto Food Delivery turned into DoorDash as we know it today, the most popular food delivery service in the United States.
Snapchat & Bitmoji: Mobile, Social, Cloud Gaming, Identity. Ever thought of Snapchat as a gaming company? Me either… until I listened to this. Jonathan Lai and Andrew Green (both of a16z) discuss how Snapchat is in a unique position to be a serious contender in the “cloud gaming” wars.
Naval Ravikant: The Angel Philosopher. I always learn something new when I listen to Naval speak. In this intriguing interview with Naval, he covers a variety of topics including his legendary reading habits, how his core values direct his life, and so much more. This episode may be old (Spring 2017) and long (2 hours), but it is also the most downloaded episode of The Knowledge Project from Farnam Street and is not one to be missed.
Twitter 🐦
My favorite Twitter thread from the past few weeks comes from Toby Howell, who dives into some of the things he’s learned from running Morning Brew’s Twitter page.
Long but knowledge-packed thread from 10-K Diver on unit economics. Definitely milked a lot of information from this one! (Special thanks to my colleague Weston for sharing)
In case you missed it, The Takeoff started a thread diving into how students can most effectively use Tech / VC Twitter. Be sure to check it out for some cool insights, stories, and advice on how to best use Twitter as a student.
Articles, Newsletters, Blog Posts, Etc. 📝
5 Interesting Strategy Decisions from WWDC. Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference was this week. We’re seeing a lot of cool new features coming to our Apple devices, but in this Substack post, Nathan Baschez gives WWDC a new spin by breaking down some of these new features from Apple’s strategic perspective rather than a consumer perspective. If you missed WWDC, you can check out some of the highlights here.
I Just Hit $100k/yr On GitHub Sponsors. In this exciting blog post, Caleb Porzio walks us through his journey to making more money developing open-source software than he did in a full-time developer role, highlighting his strategies and takeaways.
The Two Things Killing Your Ability To Focus. Endless information feeds aren’t always a good thing. This article from Harvard Business Review highlights two things that kill our ability to focus and leaves us with five daily practices to help us focus.
Other Things… 💡
The Last Chip (a newsletter by Chris Bosh). Chris Bosh just launched a newsletter on Substack. In the newsletter, Chris will share stories and lessons related to the Heat’s 2013 championship run, as well as go through The Big Three’s journey together. The Last Chip costs $5/month and proceeds from the first month are being donated to educating students of color.
Amazon to Invest in Clean Tech. Amazon announced a $2 billion venture fund to invest in clean tech that will help fight climate change. The fund will invest in multiple industries including food, transportation, and energy.
Extreme Night Owls. Often find yourself staying up later than you should be? Just like other biological traits, our sleep cycles may vary from person to person. Scientific evidence is increasingly supporting the idea of flexible schedules aligned with our individual sleeping patterns.
One More Thing to check out … Envision Accelerator
Envision is a virtual accelerator for womxn and people of color who are currently in college or recent graduates, with the goal of diversifying the entrepreneurship and venture world by providing equity-free funding, hands-on workshops, resources, mentorship, and individualized support for founders.
The first cohort will run from July 6 - August 30. There will be virtual weekly programming and events including hands-on workshops on all topics from industry leaders (from founders of Product Hunt, Backstage Capital, Quora, MongoDB, and more), founder roundtables/AMAs, and office hours with investors.
Only 3% of venture funding goes to women, and less than 1% to people of color. It’s time to change that dynamic.
If you’re interested in applying for the first cohort, apply at tinyurl.com/envisionaccelerator, or contact Annabel Strauss (annabel@envisionaccelerator.com) for more information. And check us out on social media (Instagram @envisionaccelerator, LinkedIn, and Twitter @envisionaccel)!That’s all for today’s edition of What We’ve Been Following!
If you want to check out any of our founder and investor interviews from the past two weeks, click on one of the links below:
We’re super excited to bring you an all-new founder interview on Monday — it’s a special one 😁
Help us grow The Takeoff and achieve our mission of teaching and inspiring the next generation of great leaders, founders, operators, investors, and more. If you have any friends, classmates, or coworkers who may be interested in The Takeoff, we’d love it if you could share our publication with them. Thanks in advance :)
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I’m on Twitter @roshanchandna 👋
